


Synchrony

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [92]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, Introspection, MSR, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5184641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Synchrony

_“Well, there’s one sure way to prove that theoretical possibility.”_  
_“How?”_  
 _“Show this photograph to Lisa Ianelli and ask her if it was ever taken.”_

Scully rolled her eyes but got in the car. They needed to check on Lisa anyway, make sure she did indeed get home safely after her encounter with the old man earlier.

She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or annoyed by Mulder’s eidetic recall of her graduate thesis, twisting her own words against her, and settled for a mix of both. While it was true that she had written at length about theoretical possibilities related to time travel, the fact remained that even at 23, she had understood them to be just that -- theoretical. If Mulder saw fit to drag up her hypotheses as evidence of his ridiculous “back from the future” theory, how much credence could he expect her to put in _any_ of the claims he used to justify his outlandish notions from one case to the next? The strength of the evidence mattered.

At the same time, quoting her writing word for word, as if he had not only read it but _studied_ it, well, she found it hard to be truly upset about that.

“Whoa, wait, what was that?” They had barely driven a block, but Mulder pulled the car quickly back to the curb. “I think that cop car back there just flashed their lights at us.”

Scully whipped her head around to look behind them and across the street. Sure enough, the police officer they’d spoken with earlier was getting out of his patrol car. He jogged over to them, and Mulder rolled his window down.

“You folks pass Ms. Ianelli on your way out of the building?”

Scully frowned. “No, we were just on our way to her house. You didn’t take her home?”

The officer shook his head. “No ma’am. She requested a ride here, so I drove her. I assumed she was coming to see you.”

“Not us,” Mulder said. “Actually, I’m betting she made a concerted effort not to see us, or be seen by us, anyway.”

“But if not us, then who? Why would she want to return and confront the man who claimed to want to kill her?”

“Because she figured it out. She knows who he is and probably has the same questions we do, about how he got here and what he’s really after.” He turned back to address the officer through the window. “Thanks for alerting us. We’ll take it from here.”

Mulder rolled up the window and shut the car off. Scully followed him back up the block to the hotel, still wondering what would possess Lisa Ianelli to deliberately seek out someone who had threatened her not two hours earlier. She didn’t think Mulder was right that Lisa believed the old man to be a time traveling future version of her boyfriend and colleague. Hell, she didn’t think anyone _but Mulder_ believed that.

Then again, she supposed if anyone were going to recognize an unexpectedly aged version of a person, it would be someone with whom that person was intimate. She found herself wondering if she would recognize seventy or eighty year-old Mulder if he were to suddenly confront her on the street.

Not that she and Mulder were intimate, in the complete sense of the word, but God knows they did spend enough time together.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she barely kept from bumping into her partner’s back when he stopped up short in the hallway outside the old man’s room.

“Door’s open,” he murmured. He drew his weapon, and she followed suit. “FBI, don’t move!”

They swung through the doorway with the practiced motions of two people working in concert with one another. He came in high, she came in low, and they swept and cleared the room with speed and efficiency. Almost immediately, Scully’s gaze landed on the frozen body on the floor in front of them.

“Mulder…”

“I’ll call paramedics,” he said quickly.

Scully knelt down and at a glance confirmed her fear that this latest victim was indeed Lisa Ianelli. She looked at her watch and grimaced; if she and Mulder had lingered in the room only a few minutes more, they might have been able to prevent this. As soon as Mulder hung up, he walked over to stand beside her.

“I doubt he’s still here, but I’m going to make sure. You stay with her.”

She nodded and stood, unwilling to let her guard down despite appearances that the man had fled. She was fairly certain that, given what they had learned when they’d attempted to thaw Dr. Yonechi, she could prevent or at least contain the runaway exothermic reaction and successfully revive Lisa, but not if she herself were frozen as well. Without dropping her eyes or defensive stance, she murmured to the body on the floor.

“Hang in there, Lisa. I’m going to find a way to get you through this.”

Mulder and the paramedics arrived back in the room nearly at the same time. While the EMTs were busy carefully maneuvering Lisa onto a stretcher and down to the ambulance, Mulder pulled Scully aside.

“You ride with them over to the Medical Research Facility and see what you can do to revive her. I’m going to go bail Jason Nichol out of jail. If I’m right, he is very likely the next target, and I think keeping him with us will be the best way to keep him safe and also to catch and stop his future self from killing anyone else.”

He turned and walked quickly away before she could even open her mouth to argue.


End file.
